I open another checking account alongside my primary.

Are you doing RE sales full time or alongside the W2?

In Northern CA (the real northern CA) Shasta, Trinity, Humboldt counties with the hot weather and long seasons, there's plenty of cartels out in the forests growing, alongside legal growers now,  With growing pot becoming legal, many of those that once bought from others can now grown their own.

Another tactic would be to invest in a fund that has residential debt as its primary asset class, this way you are a passive investor along side other investors and your funds are spread across multiple assets which helps to spread out the risk.

Go all out and play the risk game alongside others who have a low cost portfolio to keep them afloat if disaster strikes?

Onto the "what would you do" question...Personally I'd recommend finding an investor to bring deals to alongside a day job. 

The value that your wife is bringing to the table is actually easier to convert into a percentage of ownership in the deal because you should have a pro-forma and financial projections for the deal and the commissions that she will not charge actually have a dollar amount that is easily calculated based on the numbers you are projecting.Our business model is based on syndications for large multifamily properties where we bring equity from our investors as limited partners and we participate on the general partnership side of the deal alongside our operating partners (which in your case would be the builder).

Vinyl being replaced in a duplex unit:  Only part of the original floor was replaced with a totally different kind of vinyl laid along side of the original vinyl. 

I'm curious, do you use another metric to take into account the time value of your money alongside CoC return or have you found that CoC return has suited you well enough even without that factor?

I'm leaning towards hourly pay to work alongside me; that minimizes possible disagreement over what work was "completed."